Monthly Archives: August 2022

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Liberation Hall Records today announces the start of a worldwide catalog campaign with the Scottish post-punk dance band APB. The deal will include physical rights for the band’s first two studio albums and two compilations. Distribution will be handled by MVD Entertainment Group.

The launch begins with the November 18 multi-format release of APB’S first singles compilation, Something to Believe In. Originally issued in 1985 by New York-based Link Records, the ten-song title was perceived at the time to be APB’s debut album although it was actually a compilation drawn from the band’s previous eight independent singles. The band’s 1981 debut single, “Chain Reaction,” will be added as a bonus track to the vinyl release, while that song and an additional five tracks will appear on the expanded edition CD and download. “Danceability” will appear in its original mix on the vinyl LP, while the CD will feature the song in its extended “Danceability Parts 1 & 2” form.

In 1979, APB was formed in the small rural town of Aberdeen, Scotland. Taking inspiration from the D.I.Y. (“Do It Yourself”) spirit of punk rock, teenagers Iain Slater (singer, bassist), Glenn Roberts (guitar), and George Cheyne (drums) rehearsed relentlessly and signed with local independent Oily Records at the dawn of the 1980s. The band’s trademark post-punk dance rhythms were there from the start, with debut single “Shoot You Down” crackling with serrated guitar and Slater’s native vocal inflections. APB was in lock step with similarly militaristic dance factions of the time—Gang of Four, Au Pairs, Delta 5—but their own music was more celebratory and inclusive. Everyone was invited to an APB party.

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Bob Dylan may be the most covered artist of the rock era, although the combined covers of songs written collectively by John Lennon and Paul McCartney would certainly give him a run for his money. Two recent collections of Dylan covers are about as good as it gets, and in many instances, come at his songs from a similar stylistic point of view.

Dirt Does Dylan is the first NGDB album since 2009’s Speed of Life, the last album for original member John McEuen. Original members Jeff Hanna and Jimmie Fadden are still on board for this new album and Bob Carpenter has been in the band since 1979. Jaime Hanna, Jeff’s son, is now a member. The group’s recording career began back in 1967.

This album has a very organic feel, as if it was mostly recorded live, or with few takes or overdubs. There’s a very sparse country feel and the group makes many of the songs all its own. “Girl From the North Country,” from the 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, has a very mournful feel and the group really nails it. “Country Pie,” from Nashville Skyline from 1969, has old-time music overtones and one could imagine that if Bob Dylan heard this cover, it would put a smile on his face.

“I Shall Be Released,” best known from the Music From Big Pink version from The Band, but which was included on the 1971 Bob Dylan Greatest Hits Vol. II album, features Larkin Poe. Like “Forever Young,” which appeared on Planet Waves in 1974, it eschews a weighty arrangement and can be listened to in a new light.

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Remembering Bob Welch, born on this day in 1945. —Ed.

Climb aboard my pleasure craft, ye mateys, and I’ll tell you a tale of a true Yacht Rock captain. In 1977 former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Bob Welch cast off on his debut LP French Kiss, and sailed bravely into the upper reaches of the American Top 40. It was a voyage worthy of Ferdinand Magellan, or that guy who discovered America.

You don’t hear much of Welch outside of SiriusXM’s Yacht Rock Radio these days, and I have a hard time imagining an actual human being walking into a record store with the express purpose of buying French Kiss. But he was a very big deal in the late seventies, when such songs as “Sentimental Lady” and “Ebony Eyes” (featuring the immortal Juice Newton!) won Welch his admiral stripes, alongside other Yacht Rock giants as Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, and Pablo Cruise, who are actually four guys but who’s counting?

Where to start with Welch? Well, he’s not as much of a Yacht rocker as you might think. “Sentimental Lady” certainly falls into the category, but on the rest of French Kiss he melds hard rock riffs to disco beats and drops a lot of strings on you, and the formula works better than you think it would.

For the most part these songs are good pop fun, and as catchy as they are utterly disposable; The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau dismissed them as “aural chic” as good a soundtrack for doing your ironing as the Doobie Brothers, but I think he’s just being a meanie. I’m sure you’d have to look hard to find a Brooklyn hipster who will give French Kiss his imprimatur, but that says more about Brooklyn hipsters than it does about the album.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | A revealing inside look at the brilliant producer’s work with Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Elton John and Counting Crows—and the making of his bestselling soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou.

Just in time for Americanafest, here is the paperback edition of Lloyd Sachs’ T Bone Burnett: A Life in Pursuit. The first critical appreciation of Burnett, the book reveals how the driving force behind the Americana movement and the producer of a Who’s Who of great artists has profoundly influenced American music and culture. “A definitive portrait,” declared MOJO. “A much-needed critical biography of an influential artist by a superior critic of the genre,” proclaimed Library Journal in a starred review.

Renowned as a studio maven with a Midas touch, Burnett is known for lifting artists to their greatest heights, as he did with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss via their multiple Grammy-winning recording Raising Sand and the Bodeans via Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams. Burnett virtually invented “Americana” with his hugely successful roots-based soundtrack for the Coen Brothers’ film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which sold more than 8 million albums. Outspoken in his contempt for the profit-fixated entertainment industry, Burnett has nevertheless received many of its highest honors, including Grammy Awards and an Academy Award.

Sachs highlights all the important aspects of Burnett’s musical pursuits including his early days as a member of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, his founding of the Alpha Band and his own acclaimed efforts as a singer-songwriter, including Truth Decay and The Criminal Under His Own Hat. Sachs examines Burnett’s collaborations with the great playwright Sam Shepard, U2, and blues legend Willie Dixon and his musical contributions to lauded TV shows such as Nashville and True Detective.

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Living in Whitetop in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Martha Spencer is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, and with Wonderland, a deft collaborator. Combining traditional songs and her own compositions with no fluctuations in quality, those 16 selections are stylistically wide-ranging and yet focused, powerful yet inviting, and with the playing and singing sharp throughout. Additionally, there’s a consistent ease in execution that never gets too laid back, or too smooth, or too florid. Issued on double vinyl and compact disc, it’s a fine sophomore effort, out September 2 through Martha Spencer Music.

Martha Spencer opens Wonderland with an abundance of verve, singing in the title track like a honky-tonk gal that got hooked into cutting singles for Decca in the early ’60s, but without a trace of the middle-of-the-road-isms that big time labels saddled upon country singers back in the day; instead of syrup, there’s the spoons of Abby Roach, Joel Selvin’s robust fiddle, just a hint of Eddy-esque twang at the start, and a “boop-a-doop-a-doop” from Spencer that establishes the sense of fun in her approach.

But with Spencer’s crisp banjo plucking and warm harmonies, “Rags to Riches” quickly highlights the artist’s serious side, though don’t misapprehend that she’s dour. It’s a seriousness directly related to a background in traditional Appalachian music, as Spencer is part of the family-based Whitetop Mountain Band, amongst other outfits and projects.

That trad foundation is reflected in the sturdy string bass and chiming mandolin in “Bank of New River,” and in the guest vocals of Luke Bell in that track and Alice Gerrard in the following cut, the up-tempo “Come Home Virginia Rose.” Interestingly, every tack on the record thus far is a Spencer original, with her first foray into cover interpretation not a piece from the public domain (those will arrive on Wonderland soon enough) but Lee Hazlewood’s “Summer Wine,” with the rough depth of Kyle Dean Smith’s resonating cords so much like Hazlewood that it’s uncanny.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Stone Temple Pilots immediately established themselves as rock and roll heavyweights with the release of their debut album Core in 1992. Thirty years later, the album is a certified classic that continues to dominate the rock radio airwaves with timeless rock anthems including “Sex Type Thing,” “Creep,” and “Wicked Garden.” Core peaked at #3 on the Billboard album chart and has been certified 8x Platinum by the RIAA. The band also took home the GRAMMY® Award for Best Hard Rock Performance for their smash single “Plush.”

To commemorate 30 years of Core, Run Out Groove, Warner Music’s specialty vinyl imprint, will release an exclusive 4-LP deluxe edition of the iconic album. Available September 23, Core: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition features the original album as a 2-LP set, plus two additional LPs featuring 18 demos and live performances which are making their vinyl debut. The deluxe edition comes in a hardbound slipcase featuring an exclusive poster of the album art. Core: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is available for pre-order now.

Stone Temple Pilots (guitarist Dean DeLeo, bassist Robert DeLeo, drummer Eric Kretz, and vocalist Scott Weiland) debuted with Core in the fall of 1992 and by the following summer were one of the biggest rock bands on the scene, powered by exhilarating live shows and a string of now-classic songs from the album.

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Meeting at Goldmiths, University of London back in 2011, vocalist/ keyboardist/ visual artist Kat Day joined singer/ songwriter/ multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Wood’s solo project that was gaining traction. Since their first LP Always Then (2012) and a couple of releases on Anton Newcombe’s label A Recordings—the minimalist electronic duo The KVB have carved out their own space in the underground scene.

Married during the pandemic in a 14th-century castle in North Yorkshire and filled with changing perspectives, Unity is a departure in sound for the cold wave duo. Mixed and produced by Andy Savours (My Bloody Valentine, The Killers, and Goldfrapp), Unity is the first album where they brought in a producer to augment their home studio recordings. Early writing sessions took place in Spain where the duo was provoked by despondent half-built luxury villas sitting vacant by the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.

The album is a kaleidoscope of bright synths interlaced with post-punk chords and breathy vocal duets. The visual name of Unity’s first track, “Sunrise Over Concrete,” captures the album’s feel and sonic imprint of dystopian renewal. Out on Invada Records, Unity looks towards the future.

After wrapping up the first leg of their North American tour, The KVB will play a few more US tour dates and international festivals.

David Blue had an eventful if largely under the radar career as a singer-songwriter and actor; most people likely know him, or better said, know of his achievements, through the composition “Outlaw Man,” which was recorded by the Eagles. Starting in 1966, he cut a string of albums, and for a while, each one was more interesting than its predecessor, a climb in quality that apexed with Stories, his 1971 set for Asylum Records, an LP as worthwhile as its sales were poor. On September 2, the Eremite label detours from their avant-jazz norm with a well-deserved reissue on 120 gram vinyl in a retro flipback jacket and with an insert featuring Leonard Cohen’s 1982 eulogy for the man.

Born Stuart David Cohen in 1941, David Blue died of a heart attack in 1982 while jogging in Central Park. Although never himself a star, he ran in the circles of musical celebrity, befriending Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, with the latter association especially notable, as Blue’s self-titled 1966 debut for Elektra is very much a knock-off of Dylan’s budding folk-rock mode.

Far from a vapid hanger-on, later in his career Blue joined the Rolling Thunder Revue, with his participation landing him in Dylan’s sprawling and legendarily hard-to-see cinematic epic Renaldo and Clara, which briefly hit (a few) theaters in 1978 and hasn’t seen a legit release since. Blue’s appearance in Renaldo and Clara was essentially a documentary riff, but he was an actual actor in both Wim Wenders’ ’77 neo-noir The American Friend, and Neil Young’s harder to classify Human Highway, which was released in ’82, shortly after Blue’s death.

Returning to the discography, David Blue is a Dylan knock-off, but highly accomplished one, with a couple of gems in the category of imitative Bob-ishness (“So Easy She Goes By” and “I’d Like to Know”), but his 1968 follow-up These 23 Days in September was a more impressive affair in how it reinforced his acumen as songwriter and broadened the landscape of similarities, with a few moments reminiscent of Leonard Cohen (amid a lingering likeness to Dylan). His third LP and second of two for Reprise, Me, released in 1970 under the name S. David Cohen, branched out into country-folk territory.

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Celebrating Anton Newcombe, born on this day in 1967. —Ed.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe may produce great music, but his true vocation is self-sabotage. Not a good strategy for career advancement, mind, but as anyone who’s watched Dig! will tell you, career advancement is hardly at the top of the list of his priorities.

Over the course of his long career he’s preferred to abuse drugs, start on-stage brawls with his own bandmates, kick hecklers at his live shows in the face, and say awful things about his elders. (“What has he ever done,” he said about Eric Clapton, “except throw his baby off a fuckin’ ledge and write a song about it?”) And talk about alienating the very people who can make him a star; I saw him at a SXSW showcase a long way back and he opened the show with the announcement, “If there are any record label reps out there, fuck off!”

As those who love Newcombe the musician as opposed to Newcombe the suicide bomber will tell you, it’s a crying shame. Because the Brian Jonestown Massacre have no equal when it comes to making neo-psychedelic music. There are those who will tell you the Brian Jonestown Massacre are a one-trick pony. It’s not true. While they are best known for their retro-psychedelia—“Going to Hell” may well be the greatest Monkees song ever written—they do plenty more.

And even if they were a one-trick pony, the trick’s a great one. How many bands with dozens of tricks up their sleeves have written songs equaling “Straight Up and Down,” “Anemone,” and “Sailor”? Not many. And the sad irony is that it’s these bands you’ll find headlining rock festivals.

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